Today, I’m stepping into a new role as Amigo's Chief Medical Officer where I’ll lead the clinical strategy that guides how our AI is built and deployed.
I’ve spent the last quarter century in operating rooms and at the bedside. In my work as a cancer surgeon and Chief of Medical Staff at Stanford Health Care, I have learned just how central trust is to the entire healthcare enterprise. While we get into medical school because of our intelligence, it is our ability to form trusting relationships that truly defines our success as physicians. These relationships - whether between the patient and their physician, the care team and their organization, or medicine and society - all ultimately rest on a bedrock of trust. Now, as we usher in the age of AI, I firmly carry forward the conviction that any technology that claims to improve healthcare delivery also must earn the trust of patients and clinicians. With new healthcare AI startups launching at a fever pitch, I hold significant concern that the long-treasured element of trust in medicine may be swept aside in the name of purported efficiency gains and valuation end runs.
When I started advising Amigo in 2025, I came prepared to stress-test every claim. I’ve seen healthcare technology companies promise more than they could deliver, with solutions that physicians wouldn’t feel comfortable standing behind.
I asked Ali and John hard questions about how Amigo agents are validated and what happens when cases fall outside of what the model expects. I was pleased to discover that clinical rigor and safety are the lynchpins of everything Amigo does. The fact that the entire Amigo family carries a deep humility about the weight of building in healthcare speaks directly to my heart.
The next decade of medicine will be defined by how responsibly we bring intelligence into care. Done irresponsibly, AI will erode the trust that is the cornerstone of everything we do in medicine. If we do it right, AI can become the final keystone in the house of medicine that will allow billions more people the access to timely, high-quality medical care required for human flourishing. My core motivation for serving as the Chief Medical Officer at Amigo is to help lead society down this more responsible path.
In my role as CMO, I’ll be working with our engineers and customers to ensure every clinical agent we deploy is grounded in evidence and shaped by the clinical minds who understand the care it supports. I also plan to keep one foot in the clinical world by continuing to practice as a cancer surgeon to ensure the questions we answer stay tied to what matters at the bedside. I’m not leaving medicine to become a tech bro; I’m looking around the corner to see where medicine is heading and trying to clear the path of hurdles and false idols.
Meeting patients at what is often the darkest moment of their lives and having them trust me to walk with them on their cancer journey has been among the greatest honors of my life. And now, helping figure out how to honor and preserve that hard-earned trust as we learn to responsibly weave AI into healthcare seems like the natural continuation of this work. I feel grateful, excited, and a little bit scared to undertake this task. I aim to lead medicine into the arena where it can help the most people thrive. If you have ideas that can help me succeed in this endeavor or if you’re thinking about how best to leverage AI to help your patients and clinicians, I welcome your thoughts and your feelings.
About Dr. Jay Shah
Dr. Jay Shah is Chief Medical Officer at Amigo. A cancer surgeon and associate professor of Urology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, he was the Chief of Medical Staff at Stanford Health Care and is a nationally recognized expert in robotic surgery and bladder cancer treatment.
Prior, he served as Center Medical Director for the Genitourinary Center at MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he launched the bladder cancer robotics program and developed an enhanced recovery program for patients undergoing bladder removal surgery.
A graduate of Harvard College, he completed his medical degree and residency at Columbia University, where he was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. He has been named Physician of the Year and received the Gold Foundation Excellence in Teaching Award for his work mentoring the next generation of physicians.